Ice Breath
by Necessary Chocolate
Summary: JUMP, HANNAH, JUMP is scratched into the wall, and Hannah's ready for another day in the ice caves with her companion.


Word Count: 794 (Not counting the Author's Note.)

I was playing _Hannah and the Ice Caves_ recently. It was one of my favorite games when I was a kid - I'd play it at my grandma's house on my grandpa's computer, and I recently took up neopets again. Honestly, it sucks, since it was bought by... was it Nickelodeon? I miss the old kind, where I'd take turns with my friends and play this game like there was no tomorrow.

Enjoy.

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><p>The caves, and everything in them, are freezing, as they always are. Hannah walks past her companion, her gloved paws grazing over the words etched into the frozen wall. <em>JUMP, HANNAH, JUMP<em>. It sends a chill down her spine and her fur stands on end as she reads over the words, and after a moment, she wraps her coat tighter around herself. She had no inkling of when they were scratched into the wall. The caves never warmed up, so the walls and floors remained frozen. There were parts of the caves that held unfrozen water, water that was usually warm. She'd assumed they were natural springs.

Armin walks behind her, his tail swishing out over the ice. He's shivering already, but that's because they haven't really began moving yet. He always shivers at first, whether from fear or cold, Hannah doesn't know.

Hannah is a bar maid turned adventurer, and Armin… Armin is a Bori, one who used to have an owner, before he was abandoned in the pound and then released. Hannah grew up without an owner, only with her mother and father on Krawk Island. She doesn't know what the pound is like, but from the way Armin evades such questions and happily walks into the caves with her, she can tell it's a horrible place. The idea makes her want to find his owner and beat him up – maybe take him into these caves with a promise of treasure and leave him here. Humans have no chance in these caves. Their bodies are susceptible to the cold, and weak against the monsters. Some part of Armin knows this, and some part of the Bori still loves his owner, so he never divulged the information.

"For all I know," he told her once, his voice a whisper as they slipped on the ice, "he's been frozen." But she knows he's lying, because he doesn't look her in the eye and the subject is quickly changed. She hasn't asked him recently.

Some caves are easy to collect the treasure in, others she and Armin have to climb or fall to get them. Hannah admits that she's greedy, but it was originally want of adventure that sent her on these quests. She'd stumbled across the maps while stealing from the pirates, so she knew where the treasure was. Hannah knows where the coins lie, and she knows the way in and out. Right now, the ice cave maps are tucked in a waterproof bag in an inner coat pocket, save from the spring water and any ice that their body heat may melt. Her ears pick up the slight crinkle of the maps as she moves, and she's used to it by now. They go in the cave, collect the treasure, and get out.

While the pirates who hid their treasure here might not return for years and years, only to discover all of it gone, the ice caves were not a place Hannah enjoyed sleeping in. Armin was frightened to death, since new monsters rose from the deeper, treasure-less caves every night, as if pulled by some deep sorcery interwoven in their beings.

Hannah didn't like to wonder about what – or _who_ – they'd been once. Some seemed to be made out of the ice itself and handed swords, others were scarier and creepier.

The caves had to have some sort of magic in them, magic that made the stalagmites and stalactites grow again every night, and returned the boulders to their original place. The one time that they stayed, curled up in warm sleeping bags and back to back, Hannah had woken to the sounds of screeching and moaning. Armin woke a moment later and started to shiver in fear, but the sounds never came close to them, and whatever they were left the two of them alone. They'd never stayed again.

She doesn't feel bad about stealing from pirates. After all, they stole it all first. But she never makes any move to give it back to who it was stolen from, even though she has no real use for it, herself. She travels Neopia now, with Armin at her side, but Krawk Island is her favorite, mostly because it's her home. She grew up on the island, ownerless and happy, a little kleptomaniac who liked climbing things a little too much. Armin never told her where he came from, but she doesn't really need to know. She trusts him, besides.

Hannah slides forward, her paw-feet ready for the lack of traction. They have boulders to push and treasure to collect, caves to crawl through and springs to swim in. It's just another day in the ice caves, just another day with the former tavern wench and her partner-in-crime.

She smiles and pulls Armin forward with her, the map already in her hands.


End file.
